TV Guitars: Inside the World of Late Night (with exclusive Rig Rundown videos)

Every weeknight it’s the same, all across
the country: Local news anchors sign
off with varying degrees of schmaltz …
there’s a couple of commercials for cars or
beer … and then it hits—the explosion of
jubilant horns, grooving bass lines, tight
guitar riffs, and funky keyboard blasts.

It’s late-night talk show time! Time for
acerbic monologues, silly sketches, musical
guests from all over the stylistic map, and
interviews with stars and others getting their
proverbial 15 minutes. But if you don’t watch
closely—if you’re tucking the kids in or taking
one last pass through your Facebook news
feed—you might miss the people pumping
out those catchy jams. Every night, no matter
which network or cable channel you’re watching,
a five-second pan across the stage is all
the time you get to see some of the most talented,
hardest-working musicians on TV. The
gig comes with a perplexing dichotomy of
fame and anonymity—go on, see for yourself:
You know the shows and their hosts practically
like they were your next-door neighbor, but
how many of the 13 guitarists and bassists on
these pages can you name without looking?

But don’t go feeling bad for them just yet.
Although these guys groove away night
after night on the world’s tiniest stages for
audiences of millions who barely notice
they exist, there are plenty of perks—40+
weeks of steady work each year playing a
wide variety of music with a guaranteed
paycheck, no late nights or early mornings,
no heavy gear schlepping, and no shyster
club owners or record label sleaze. Oh, and
then there are the countless opportunities
to meet and jam with a who’s-who of musical
guests. “The best thing about this job is
being excited every Sunday, knowing I get
to go to work tomorrow!” says Letterman’s
Sid McGinnis. He’s been at it for almost
30 years, and as we recently found out, his
sentiment is shared by all the players of
late-night TV.

We visited New York City and Los
Angeles to interview the guitarists and bassists
for six major talk shows, on set and in
their rehearsal rooms, to find out what it’s
really like to be part of a TV band.

It’s Showtime!
It’s mid-morning, and on both coasts the
guitarists and bassists who provide the
soundtrack to America’s late-night shows
are arriving at their respective television
studios. Most follow a similar schedule on
show day, beginning with a band meeting
somewhere between 10 a.m. and 1
p.m., depending upon the show. During
the meetings, the bands plan out the day’s
music—including commercial bumps (what
plays when the show goes into and comes
out of a commercial), play-on music (what
plays when a guest walks out), and music
for skits—at the direction of the band leader
or musical director. After the day’s tasks
are set, it’s time to rehearse and record.

All the music you hear during the show
is played by the band, and the music used
during prerecorded sketches or offsite bits is
usually recorded in the hours preceding the
taping of the main show. “We move pretty
fast and go through 40 to 45 pieces of
music per week,” explains Paul Jackson Jr.,
one of The Tonight Show band’s two guitarists.
Most of the arrangements for the live
show and recordings are put together on
the fly in rehearsal that same day. Though
reading music is not a necessity—The Late
Show’s Felicia Collins notes, “I started off
this gig minus the skills to read or write
music other than writing down chords”—
the daily practice of tackling new material
is something that all of the guitarists agreed
has sharpened their skills.

“[Being on the show] forced us to
rehearse in a very systematic way when
we first got the gig,” explains the Roots’
“Captain” Kirk Douglas. “So much more is
being asked of us, it’s no longer just on our
own terms what we are to do. Now we are
being employed, so we had to really step
our game up and be prepared for unexpected
situations—and it’s made us a better
band, doing that.”

The New York City Crew: (left to right) Saturday Night Live's Jared Scharff. The Late Show with David Letterman's Will Lee, Felicia Collins, and Sid McGinnis. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Mark Kelley and Kirk Douglas. Illustration by Steve Worthington.

After the bits are recorded in the
rehearsal rooms—which are set up as mini
recording studios so pro that Douglas says
the Roots has recorded album material
there—it’s time for onstage rehearsal. All
of the bands watch the comedy rehearsals,
contributing music to skits as necessary.
“We even might get naked and act in
sketches—believe me, I have,” says Jimmy
Kimmel Live! guitarist Toshi Yanagi. Once
rehearsals wrap, it’s time for makeup, wardrobe,
and the taping.

Everyone we talked to agrees that, once
the cameras start rolling, it’s important to
stay on your toes. “The band’s job is to
keep the energy up for the studio audience,”
says Conan bassist Mike Merritt,
“[But] each show is different—things can
happen unexpectedly. [You have to] be
ready for anything to happen at any time
during taping.”

Late Show bassist Will Lee explains,
“Most of the time spent onstage is us playing
off the air for the audience, [songs]
that the TV audience never really hears us
do.” Lee’s cohort, Late Show guitarist Sid
McGinnis, adds, “Part of the dance [is that]
sometimes there are technical problems:
With a million inputs, both audio and
visual, sometimes we’ll be playing the same
song for a really long time. That poor audience!”
[Laughs.]

For The Late Show, the taping is where
it all comes together in the first place.
Unlike the other shows, its players barely
rehearse prior to the taping. “We are lucky
to squeeze 10 to 15 minutes of rehearsal
between comedy and guest-band rehearsals,”
says McGinnis. “We are perfectly
under-rehearsed, so it’s always exciting
and demands our full attention for the
one-hour taping.” The band literally
decides what to play live as the show is
being taped—though 30 years of shared
history and musical repertoire makes
that feat easier to pull off for the CBS
Orchestra than for the average band.
When they need to learn new songs
or freshen up arrangements, the band
members work on material on their own
time—something most of the other shows
only do for special circumstances, like a
sit-in guest or if they’re needed to back
the musical guest.

Rebecca Dirks graduated from the University of Iowa with degrees in journalism and art, and joined Premier Guitar as an intern in 2007. She lives in the Iowa City area with her husband, two giant dogs, and more cats than are appropriate to mention. When not petsitting, she enjoys challenging herself in the kitchen, watching the Packers dominate, and discovering new music or rediscovering old favorites.

Since attending a Dave Matthews Band concert as a teenager, Jason has been into all things guitar. An Iowa native, Jason has degrees in Music Business from Minnesota State-Mankato and Jazz Pedagogy from the University of Northern Iowa. Since then, he has spent time doing everything from promotion at an indie music label to organizing guitar workshops all over the country. Currently, Jason lives with his wife, son, and daughter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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